The Gulag Archipelago

The Gulag’s security forces considered escape attempts to be “only natural, a manifestation of the waste which is unavoidable in any overextended economic enterprise” (379). Such escape attempts, expressly forbidden, were “rougher, grimmer, more ruthless, more desperate, and therefore more glorious” (380). Solzhenitsyn tells the story of two men who escaped from such a camp but were captured by local villagers, angry at the men’s attempts to live nearby. Once the villagers discovered that the men were escapees from the nearby camp, however, their anger softened. If the escapees had simply revealed themselves rather than try to steal, they were told, they would have received all the help they needed. The men were sent back to the camp.

Of all the ranks of guards at the camp, the lowest ranking was the “robust youngsters born during the First Five-Year Plan” (383). They did not fight in the war and prided themselves on their shiny new Tommy guns. The young men knew little about the prisoners, but they unreservedly followed their orders to shoot. They were given lessons in political ideology which taught them to see the inmates as unforgivable criminals and fascists, rather than innocent victims. They came to resent the inmates, even though they knew nothing about them and even though they were relatively well-paid for their work.

Mutinies and uprisings were not uncommon in the Gulag, but the history of such events has been deliberately hidden. Solzhenitsyn discusses some of these uprisings. An uprising in the public works site No. 501 was organized by ex-soldiers who killed the convoy guards, removed the sentries, and stole weapons from the barracks. After liberating their own camp, they decided to help those in a nearby camp but were stopped when troops parachuted into the area. Most of the rebels were shot, the others had their sentences extended or doubled. As more inmates began to realize that they have strength in numbers, however, the uprisings became more frequent and “the age of rebellion” (388) began.

Solzhenitsyn admits that violence goes against his humanist instincts, but he insists that anyone who has not experienced the Gulag cannot understand the necessity of fighting back. Once the inmates realized their innate power, they began killing informers and others they considered traitorous. The dynamic in the camp changed; the guards suddenly lacked information and any informers were terrified for their lives. The prisoners became increasingly confident and the guards’ attempts to quell the uprising failed.

Solzhenitsyn continues his story of the uprising in his camp:

The inmates continued with their work duties and wondered how they should use their newfound power. A group tried to set fire to a cell containing informers who had been torturing the other inmates. The guard towers opened fire on the rest of the prisoners, many of whom were oblivious to the uprising. Soldiers storm the prison and the inmates tried to flee to their bunks amid the chaos. In the aftermath, the inmates launched a hunger strike. Solzhenitsyn joined them, even though he only had one year of his sentence remaining. The strike continued for three days, forcing the guards to listen to the prisoners’ demands. However, some of the inmates broke their strike. The rest lost hope and were quick to follow. Though they did not get everything they wanted, the inmates succeeded in altering the mood of the camp. They began to realize their power and their prison “ceased to belong to the Archipelago” (402). At the beginning of the 1950s, faults appeared in the foundation of the Gulag system. The deaths of Stalin and Beria exacerbated the issues.

Solzhenitsyn remembers how the mood in the camps changed, both after the initial uprisings and after political changes in Soviet society. In the aftermath of Beria’s fall from grace and execution, as well as the death of Stalin in 1953, the authorities running the Gulag system became less focused. The guards executed more inmates, but the inmates had a greater sense of their own importance. Hunger and work strikes became more frequent, so the security forces decided to mix the political inmates with the criminals. They hoped that by mixing the two groups, they would diminish the uprisings among the political inmates. Instead, the security forces created “the biggest mutiny in the history of the Gulag Archipelago” (405). The political inmates and the criminals formed an alliance.

As the camp seethed with rebellion, a delegation arrives to bargain with them. The inmates were buoyed simply by the fact that the security forces were willing to listen. The inmates demanded that murderers be put on trial, that the numbers be removed from the huts, that the huts not be locked, and that the women of the camp should not be beaten. Though the demands were initially met, violence broke out. The 8,000 inmates overran the guards and established a committee to negotiate with the authorities. They wanted better treatment, better working conditions, and the right to correspond with their relatives outside the camp. The negotiators could not accede to the demands, but instead made empty promises—which the inmates rejected, and the two sides entered a long stand-off lasting more than a month.

As troops gathered outside the camp, the inmates assumed that they would soon be overrun by soldiers. The inmates became hopeful when the soldiers told them that their demands had been met; however, the soldiers invaded the camp the next day and killed hundreds of inmates. The inmates fought back but succumbed to the soldiers’ tanks. In the following days, the surviving prisoners were made to dismantle their barricades before being put back to work.